Untill the End
by Edict
Summary: A look back through Magnius' life From his childhood, to when Lloyd comes to take down the ranch. Just my veiw on what really happened, and the things to come.spoilers
1. Chapter 1

Magnius groaned and rolled over in his bed. It was still warm enough to "make outside the covers seem freezing. He sighed then wrapped the cover around him, sitting up. It was almost three am, but an alarm was going off. He checked the clock to make sure it was the alarm on the clock, rather than the alarm saying someone had escaped the ranch. Yeah, it was the alarm clock. There must have been a meeting with the other cardinals today, he thought. Slowly, Magnius dragged himself out of the bed and left his room, still wrapped in the covers. It took him a few steps to get his balance after just waking up, but only a few.  
" You're up early today, Lord Magnius." A voice said from a little down the hall. It was overly cheerful this early in the morning, Magnius thought. He stopped to look at whoever said that. It was his second in command, Kiso, who even though was human, was a good commander.  
" Meeting with the other Cardinals this morning. Lord Yggdrasill wants to be difficult and make it so early…" Magnius said, yawning and stretching his arms. The cover fell down slightly from around his shoulders, but he caught it before it fell off completely.  
"Do…you want me to put your over up, sir?" Kiso offered, holding his hand out.  
"Nah, I'm bringing it with me." Magnius said, turning and continuing down the hall. Kiso stopped and looked at Magnius, blinking a few times, confused.

Magnius arrived early to the meeting, very early. He made sure to get there a few hours early this time because Yggdrasill was getting irritated and him always being late. Not today, nope. Today he would be on time no matter what. Magnius smiled at the thought of it and lied his head down on the table, soon falling back asleep.

"Should we wake him up?" a female voice asked, prodding the sleeping Magnius.  
" Just let him sleep" a young male voice said with a sigh.  
" Yeah, Yggdrasill might not be _as_ angered if he's here but just asleep." An older male voice said as he poked Magnius as well. Magnius groaned and swatted them away.  
"I'm awake, I'm awake!" he said, opening one eye to look at the ones poking him. It was the other Cardinals. Pronyma and Kvar were the ones that had been poking him. Pronyma, bored with poking him, turned and sat down in her seat. Across the table from here was the younger male voice, Forcystus. He was already seated. Then there was Rodyle, who had never gotten involved in the conversation. Rodyle was just sitting back in his seat, reading some book. Magnius looked at them all, then sat up in his chair, stretching.

Soon, Yggdrasill walked in, Kratos and Yuan following close behind. They had been talking about something on their way here, obviously, but it was impossible to tell what on Sylverant they were talking about.  
"Well, of course, but it would be logical to do it that way." Lord Yggdrasill said, looking towards Yuan.  
"Sure, but Kratos does it every other time anyway, and it takes long enough for a new one to arise." Yuan said quickly, obviously trying to get out of doing something. " I would just rather Kratos do it again this time."  
Yggdrasill sighed, and then turned back to Kratos. "Fine, if you agree to it, of course, Kratos." He said as he sat down in his seat.  
" If he does not want to go on doing it this time, I would be fine doing it. Just he has to do it the next two times." Kratos said, sitting down in his chair as well. Yuan frowned to that, but nodded his head to agree.  
"Alright then, that is settled." Yggdrasill nodded as well, then turned to the rest of them. He was just about to say something, when.  
"Why do we have to get up so early! Some of us need sleep!" Magnius demanded before laying his head back on the table, covering it with his cover. It was silent for a minute or two before Kvar spoke.  
"Because _some_ of us have things to do during the day." He said in a rather matter a fact way.  
"Four AM?"  
" Yes! There are things that I need to do! Do not forestall this meeting just because you're lazy and won't get up so early in the morning!" Kvar hissed, turning away.  
"Indeed. Lets get this started." Yggdrasill said, putting an end to their 'debate.' "Kvar, I understand that you are again trying to find the exphere to your Angelus project, correct?"  
Kratos looked up with wide eyes, turning to Kvar.  
"…You are?" He asked hesitantly.  
"Yes." Kvar said, smugly.  
"…Oh. Well, good luck then. Though, do you not think it is a little late to be looking for it…?  
" No, I believe I know where it is, actually." The blond-haired man said smirking slightly. Kratos sent a glare towards Kvar, thinking what he was going to say over before saying it.  
"I really doubt you can relocate on exphere. I don't think you actually know where it is, Kvar."  
"Oh, really? I think _you_ might know where it is, _Lord_ Kratos."  
Magnius looked up at them, watching their conversation. You could tell that they were some how arguing with one another. There was a hatred that ran down deep between them. It wasn't terribly hard to tell.  
Yggdrasill turned to Kratos, seeming Surprised and confused. It was obvious he was still that little boy inside.  
"Do you, Kratos?"  
When Kratos turned to speak to Yggdrasill, you could see that his expression softened. He was either surprised or worried at his friend's doubt.  
" What? No. How would I?" He spoke hesitantly, then realizing that he worded it in a bad way. Kratos looked to Kvar, who grinned at his last question.  
"Well, you—" Kvar started, but was soon interrupted.  
Magnius yawned loudly, taking his cover and pulling it over his head again. It was quiet for a few moments, but you could hear Kvar shift around and look at Magnius. He probably wasn't too happy.  
"…Could have heard something." Kvar finished, deciding to take Magnius' hint and end their conflict there. He then sent and irritated look at Magnius, though he thought since he was still covered up and did not see it. He did see it however. Magnius pulled the cover from over his head and stuck his tongue out mockingly. Kvar growled, looking like he was ready to strangle the red-haired man, and he probably was. Their hatred for each other ran deep as well, though theirs was made more obvious by the constant mocking and insult that were passed back and forth during meetings and such. It probably started when Magnius first joined the Desians, when he worked at Kvar's ranch.

--------

A young Desian sat down against a wall. He had night shift, unfortunately. The lights were out for the humans to sleep, and it wasn't exactly warm, either. The desian sighed and put his helmet on, figuring since no one else was in there with him, he could get a good bit of sleep while he was there. Making sure that the helmet overshadowed his face, the desian fell asleep.

For a few hours, he did get some rest. Though, it was only a few. Soon, he was awoken to the sound of an alarm and from being slammed against the wall. Despite this, he was still rather groggy, and didn't wake up right away. The helmet that had been covering his face was gone; they must have taken it off when they found he was asleep. What had been hidden under that was the face of a young half-elf. He couldn't have been more than fifteen years old, which was young in both human and elvish years. His read hair was carelessly tied back, leaving loose locks of hair draped over his extended ears. A pair of dark emerald eyes shifted back and forth, struggling to focus the figure that was in front of him. Across these eyes lay two scars, though. One vertically across his left eye, the other vertical, but just under his right eye.  
When the half elf's eyes went into focus, you could see a hint of both fear and surprise to what he saw. The figure that was standing in front of him had him by the callor of his shirt, pushed against the wall. The figure had been half elf too, a small, scrawny, blond haired man. His expression was of disgust and anger, most likely towards whom he was holding. He was one of the Five Grand Cardinals, and the leader of the Asgard ranch, the ranch they were in.  
"…Umm…" the red-haired half elf spoke hesitantly. "… You see...Lord Kvar, I uh…" he stuttered, trying to think of an excuse. The look on Kvar's face however, told him he should just stop talking. He knew he had done something horribly wrong, or else Kvar wouldn't be there. He would have just sent one of the higher in commands to deal with this sort of thing; for them to deal with lazy officers. Unfortunately for the young Desian, Kvar was there to handle it.  
"Please, save me from your excuses and just shut up." Kvar hissed, letting go of the half elf. He turned away to look towards some of the sleeping humans. The half elf could hear him mumble something before turning back to him.  
"Tell me, Magnius. " Kvar spoke calmly. " You have no idea what you have done, have you?"  
"...Umm..." Magnius, the half elf, paused then looked around slightly, fidgeting. _'Damn...this is bad…'_ he thought, watching Kvar.


	2. Chapter 2

"Magnius? …Magnius!"

He snapped back awake. Kratos was in front of him, waving his hand in front of his face.

"The meeting is over." He stated, folding his arms across his chest. Sure enough, the other Cardinals and Seraphim had already left. Magnius gathered his things and left out of the meeting room and walked down the hall. _'Nothing important happens in meetings anyway. At least not these ones.' _He thought as he headed to the warp room. It was the easiest way back to his ranch. He paused when Pronyma came up to him, but kept going after that second.

"Wait, Magnius." She called and hurried over to him. Magnius looked back to acknowledge her there, but at the same time look like he was in a slight hurry.

"Inspection tomorrow." It was all she said before stopping and it was all she needed to say. Magnius nodded at that, and continued to his ranch.

'_Great' _At least he was warned for once, though. Magnius never did that great with  
inspections and he always got and earful from Yggdrasill the next day. This time he would make sure he was prepared and everything.

The rest of the day Magnius spend making sure things were fine for inspection. Getting people to do jobs correctly, making sure most everyone knew about the inspection and knew not to act stupid the next day, things like that. Finally when he thought things seemed to be right, he went back to the main control room and sat down to relax.

"I have a propositions, Magnius."  
Magnius jumped, spinning around in his chair. There, leaning on the wall, was Lord Rodyle, reading one of Magnius' books he had out. Magnius frowned and relaxed again.

"What do you want then?"  
Rodyle folded the book up and put it under his arm.

"I need Gald, workers, things of that such. The Ma-… there is something I'm working on. You, on the other hand, need a little more power. Someone to back you up during meetings." The purple haired man said as he approached Magnius. He sat down in a chair across from him.

Rodyle was a small man, not too built or anything. He was quite short and rather thin, but wore a cloak like thing to make himself seem larger. He watched Magnius through small, rose colored glasses. Rodyle looked amused at what Magnius said next.

"…Well, what you're working on. Yggdrasill Okayed it, right?"

"Of course, of course. I would not work against our leader, do not think things such as that, Magnius. You may even ask Kvar. He would not lie."  
Magnius stared at the man for a while, thinking.

"How…How much would you need?"

"Just what you can spare, Magnius. This will no doubt take a few years, at least."  
Magnius paused, still watching Rodyle. He couldn't be sure yet. Rodyle never was the most trust worthy person; to him or to Cruxis. What he was asking though, seemed reasonable. The problem was that it was Rodyle asking.

" I'll get back to you on that. I'm busy with other things right now, Rodyle." Magnius said after a minute. He turned around in his chair and pulled some things up on the screen – some files and monitors, things like that. Rodyle stood there for a second.

"Fine. Maybe you can decide later in the week, then?" Rodyle said, disappointed. Magnius nodded and waved his hand to dismiss him.

"Sure, sure."  
He didn't turn away from the screen, trying to look as busy as he could at the moment. Rodyle frowned and left for the warp, leaving back to his ranch. Magnius stopped and sighed, looking back towards where Rodyle had left.

'_What's he trying to pull?'_ he thought, turning back to the screen. Maybe he should ask Kvar? Rodyle could have been dependent on hope that he wouldn't contact Kvar about this, considering their dislike for one another. Magnius watched the monitor for a minute before shutting it off. Yes, he was going to go to Kvar. Something felt wrong about it all.

"Kiso!" Magnius called as he went down the hall. The human commander poked his head out of a room he was in, his pen in his mouth.

"Hn?" He removed the pen. " What is it, Lord Magnius?"

"There's something I need to take care of. You're in charge while I'm gone, got it? Don't blow anything up." Magnius said, sounding more serious that it was meant to be. Kiso nodded before going back into the room to finish whatever he was working on.

Magnius entered Kvar's ranch. He could hear some snide remarks as he entered. They must have gotten their dislike of him from Kvar. Magnius was rarely there, so they couldn't have had that much of an opinion of him exactly. Magnius paused, and turned towards the officers huddled in a group talking. He watched them sharply and they were quiet when he did.

"You know, I thought Kvar's men would know when to be quiet…either that of be smart. One of the two." Magnius remarked, smiling and turning away. He went inside the actual ranch now. It was great having power. They can't do anything but complain about how they dislike him at this point.

Soon, he got to the main control room. It was rather plain and bare, obviously Kvar's decorating sense. He walked around the room for a moment as he waited for Kvar. He must have been out doing something. Of course he was when Magnus showed up to actually ask him something important. With a sigh of boredom, Magnius sat down beside one of the many computers in the room. He turned toward it, then shuddering at what was on it. The words '_Angelus Project' _typed across the top of the page. Kvar still blamed Magnius for some mishaps with the Angelus Project.

--------

The young Magnius watched Kvar. The cardinal was pacing back and forth before he turned him back to Magnius.

"Your life is on the line." The blond haired man said coldly. He didn't turn to look at Magnius before he walked out. Magnius leaned against the wall. What happened? He was only asleep for a little while. What was it he could have prevented, that was so important? He relaxed himself against the wall with a heavy sigh. Pausing for a moment, he walked towards the door. It had been locked when Kvar left. Obviously, he wasn't supposed to leave. He pushed his hair away from his face and backed away from the doorway. This was indeed bad. He couldn't do anything but wait for Kvar to come back and hope that he had better news. Magnius did just that, too. He waited, waited for a few good hours.

Finally, a desian came in holding a young woman by the wrists. She struggled to get away as she was practically dragged back to her cell. She was thrown in and she skidded against the cold stone floor. The woman coughed for a moment before getting up and rushing over to the door of the cell, which had been locked. The desian then turned to Magnius.

"You're so in for it now, Mag. Kvar wants to see you. Now."  
Magnius nodded and didn't say a word. There was no use in arguing with the desian there at least. He followed him to where Kvar was waiting. Kvar was sitting at a table, Watching Lay Pronyma leave. As she passed Magnius, she paused to just shake her head then continued on.

Kvar sighed as he looked up at Magnius. His look of irritation soon turned back to the cold anger it was before. The cardinal stood and grasped his staff as he walked towards Magnius and the officer that lead him there. After dismissing the officer, he turned to Magnius."You're lucky. If we had not found my Angelus project, you would indeed be dead right now."

"Well, then maybe you should have more people guarding your precious project."

"Maybe you should not have fallen asleep!" Kvar yelled, gripping his staff tighter. Magnius turned away stubbornly and started to walk away. That there struck Kvar's last nerve. He grabbed Magnius and shoved him into the wall before pressing the sharpened edge of his staff against Magnius' neck. He froze, watching Kvar for a moment. The moment passed, and he let out a staggered breath that he had not realized he had been holding. Magnius stayed pressed against the wall and tried his best to not appear frightened. That irked Kvar more and after a second the cardinal lifted his staff from his officer's neck and used that same edged tip to slash the young Magnius in the face. The attack left a gash across the bridge of his nose.

"Take that as a warning, officer." Kvar hissed as he turned to leave. Magnius had his hands clasped over the gash in attempts to stop the bleeding and his head was forced to the side from the blow. It took a moment for him to collect himself again, but he did. Turning to Kvar's turned back he felt the strong urge for revenge, and everyone knows payback is always worse than what was first dealt.

"Eruption!" Magnius yelled. The mana had already been gathered and a rather large summon circle formed around Kvar. It was easy to see Kvar's hesitance when he saw the fire burst out from the floor around him. The area around Kvar was crisp; the metal covered floor was melted together into coal black ash. Magnius saw the cardinal drop to the floor and almost double over. He smiled to himself, though his victory was short lived. Slowly, Kvar brought himself to his feet and placed his hand against the wall for support. There were deep burns over him. In fact, Kvar was surprised at Magnius' skill of magic at his age. He hadn't been expecting anything powerful from Magnius, especially how he represented himself. You wouldn't be able to tell that he had mastered a few high magic attacks under the brute strength that he had shown.

Pronyma, who was still there when this had happened, placed her hand on Kvar's shoulder to stop him from attacking Magnius. Wincing, Kvar left his legs give in from the burns up his legs. The worst burns were on his legs and only got worse the farther down the leg you went. Kvar fell back to his knees and glared up at Magnius.

"So, the great Kvar has fallen to one of his officers?" She said quietly to Kvar.

" I did not think that someone of his intelligence could concentrate enough to master any high leveled magic.

"That's what you get for showing your back to anyone, Kvar."

"That's **Lord** Kvar to you."

"Magnius?"

…

" Damn it, Magnius. What do you want? …And get away from my computer."

Magnius felt someone shove him and he stumbled out of the computer chair.

"What? Oh, Kvar. I need to ask you something about Rodyle, actually." Magnius said. He still seemed rather out of it, but he regained himself soon. Kvar just watched Magnius, carefully, but not saying anything to left Magnius continue.

"He said he had a … project; something that needed money and officer. Rodyle came to me asking for it and he said that Lord Yggdrasill approved this project. He also said that you would be in on this." He said hesitantly as he turned to face Kvar completely.

Both of them must have remembered what had happened before. Pronyma had promoted Magnius to a higher ranked officer after that. He worked under her and was promoted to second in command in no time. When she became the leader of the Five Grand Cardinals, she worked more at Cruxis than in her ranch. Magnius took over her ranch while she was working and soon had just become a cardinal himself. Kvar hated Pronyma for being the leader, and was very open about it. He felt more that he should have rightfully been leader. Though, what he hated more was how she had made Magnius a cardinal just to smite him.

Kvar walked over to the computer when he noticed what files were on it. Still keeping an eye on Magnius, he shut down the programs.

"Do you not trust Lord Rodyle, then?" He asked as he sat down in a chair.

"It's not like he hasn't lied to us before, Kvar. I'm just checking what he said of you being in on this before coming to a decision is all." Magnius said as he turned away from Kvar. If Kvar was going to sit, he might as well sit too.

"That seems oddly intelligent for you, Magnius."  
Magnius frowned and turned his head to Kvar.

"Just tell me, will you? I have better things to do rather than listen to your horrible insults."


End file.
